


the world turned upside down

by the_night_owl1701



Category: Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon), Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Animal Transformation, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Episode: s02e15 Threshold, Found Family, Gen, Happy Threshold Day!, Hyperevolution, Peer Pressure, Salamander babies, The Author Regrets Nothing, background J/C and P/T, how did Anthony get onto the Osler?, lizard babies, salamanthony, you know I couldn't just leave those babies alone on that planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29055138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_night_owl1701/pseuds/the_night_owl1701
Summary: “Computer, what the hell is that?”“Salamandra atra — a species of hyper-evolved salamander marked by increased brain capacity and lack of vestigial organs. Last Federation contact by the USS Voyager in 2372.”
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	1. helpless

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was meant to be 2k, maybe 2.5k tops, but much like a certain Star Trek episode, it hyperevolved.
> 
> I gave Anthony the last name Martinez after Rick Martinez from the Martian, who is also a test pilot and astronaut. (BTW, if you haven’t read the Martian… highly recommend.)
> 
> All titles are from Hamilton, but no Hamilton knowledge is necessary to read this.
> 
> Disclaimer: Voyager, Lower Decks and their characters are not mine; I have simply kidnapped them to celebrate all things green and slimy. 
> 
> Dedication: for all my fellow lizard-lovers. Happy 25th anniversary, Threshold!

_Stardate 54688.58 (September 9, 2377)_

Anthony presses his finger to the scanner and bobs his head to the guard at the front desk. “Mornin’”

“Good morning, Anthony!” she beams, waving him through.

He walks past the gate and into the turbolift, jostling shoulders with the Alpha Force pilots streaming out from their secretive shuttlebay on the seventh floor. Absorbed in their boisterous shouts and daredevil schemes, they don’t deem him worthy of a second glance.

He disembarks on the fourth floor, and walks toward Zeta Bay, slowing down as he admires the portraits of past alumni of the Starfleet Testing and Aeronautical Research Division framed on either side. Christopher Pike, Veronica Stadi, Keith Robinson, Aditi Gupta… so many brilliant engineers and helmsmen got their start right here, working on Starfleet’s cutting edge shuttle technology and eating the awful slop at Brut’s.

Anthony’s just an ensign, but seeing their portraits every morning gives him hope that one day, he too will be proudly remembered as one of the Federation’s best pilots. 

“Martinez!” 

He jolts at the sound of Lieutenant Reed’s voice, then hurries down the rest of the hallway and into the lab. 

As soon as he steps inside, a wall of sound assaults him: the crackling pops of welding torches against the metal prototype hulls, the din of dozens of engineers shouting instructions and arguing over specs, the zip of robotic arms as they manipulate shuttle components into place.

He slides into his seat and pulls up the warp drive schematics, wincing as he follows the trail of comments the Gamma shift engineers have left over the past few hours. 

They have a lot of work to do. 

#####

Shrav groans as Brut’s worn-out food replicator deposits a plate of foul-smelling meatloaf into his tray. 

“Not this again,” Anthony sighs, poking at his portion with a fork. To his right, Damien cuts busily into his vegetarian option, which somehow looks just as awful.

Starfleet would probably spend less effort on cleaning up after nauseated test pilots if they put a little more care into managing the STARD Replimats.

Jackie, curled on his left with her nose in a technical manual, shrugs and shovels a chunk into her mouth roughly. “It’s not so bad if you eat it quickly,” she says.

As Anthony resigns himself to eating the disgusting meatloaf, Renora plops down next to them. “So, I spent today redesigning the exhaust manifolds for the third time. Please tell me you all are having a better day than me.”

She looks at Anthony, but he just shrugs. “Nope. I’ve been analyzing the deuterium usage of the Class-F warp drives.“

STARD’s commander has a firm belief that if you can’t understand a ship, you can’t pilot it effectively, so all the test pilots have mandatory rotations with the engineering teams. 

It’s practically tradition for the first rotation to be incredibly insipid, so Anthony’s not really surprised about it — but it does still suck.

Renora rubs the ridges across her nose tiredly. “Ugh. How about you, Jackie?”

She puts her book down. “Actually… I heard something interesting through the grapevine this morning. Apparently, Beta Bay is working on some kind of warp ten shuttle technology.”

“Warp ten? But that’s only theoretical!”

Shrav butts in. “Not anymore. _Voyager_ was able to send some of their logs back in their last datastream, and they’ve tested a transwarp drive.”

Damien grins. “That’s amazing. Imagine… you could be anywhere in the blink of an eye!”

“I know, it’s incredible. ‘Course, it was the first transmission they sent, so the logs were a little garbled and it took some experimenting to figure out how it all fit together, but it sounds like the prototype is ready for a shakedown soon!” Jackie exclaims.

“Can you imagine being the test pilot of the first transwarp drive!” Renora gestures wildly with her fork, almost flinging meatloaf across the table in her excitement. “You’d go down in history with Neil Armstrong and Zefram Cochrane and all the rest!” 

Anthony hears their discussion peripherally, half-occupied with thoughts of the pending modifications to the deuterium injectors which he’ll need to incorporate into his analysis, until Shrav repeats his name.

“Wha—” 

“I said, don’t you know Portia in Beta Bay?.“

“Yes,” he responds suspiciously.

Shrav’s antennae twitch with interest. “So you could get us in!” 

Anthony squirms under his gaze. “No way!”

STARD strictly forbids their lower decks from knowing _anything_ about their experimental work, a policy which causes a lot of unrest. Enterprising ensigns, like Shrav, have made something of a game of trying to gain access to the information, and Anthony is certain this is a move which can only end badly. 

“C’mon Anthony, please? I just want to _see_ the shuttle, one little peek won’t hurt!” 

One by one, the others pile on, adding their pleas to the chorus and convincing him that it’s perfectly safe. The onslaught is exhausting, and soon, all he wants is to burrow somewhere warm, dark, and quiet and never, ever come out again.

He manages to hold fast for a little while, until Renora turns her pleading eyes on him.

He _has_ heard rumors that Starfleet can use these sorts of rules as a test, a sort of miniature Kobayashi Maru. Maybe there is a third option here, a way to see Beta Bay and prove himself in the process. 

“Alright, I guess a quick look would be alright.”

#####

_Stardate 54700.27 (September 13, 2377)_

Anthony takes a couple days to carefully plan their visit. At many stages, he considers simply telling his friends that he can’t go through with it, that the trouble if they’re caught isn’t worth it. 

Then, he thinks about the steely-eyed aces on Alpha Force and the kinds of death-defying risks they take every day in the name of science. 

He keeps planning.

On a quiet Tuesday afternoon, he sneaks the group past Beta Bay’s security measures with a key he ‘swiped’ from Portia.

The space is enormous — nearly triple the size of Zeta bay, Anthony can’t help but notice — and right in the center, a single shuttle gleams on the tarmac. Markings across its hull boldly proclaim: USS EARHART. 

The group splits immediately, each drawn to different places. Renora approaches the shuttle, awestruck, and strokes its bulkhead reverently. Jackie walks around the _Earhart_ slowly, then hops aboard, taking a closer look at the controls. Damien and Shrav wander around the bay as well, delighted.

Though the others are enjoying their sneak peek, Anthony gets antsier with every moment in the shuttlebay. Every few seconds, his eyes dart to the entrance, expecting to see security officers burst in at any moment. At the same time, he tracks his friends’ movements obsessively, trying to keep an eye on all of them but failing miserably.

Damien unlatches a compartment at the rear of the shuttle, Anthony yanks him away from it, slamming the door shut. “I think we should leave, now,” he says, an edge of panic entering his voice. 

He herds the group toward the entrance and is about to re-engage the locking mechanism when he hears an ominous latching sound from the _Earhart_.

Anthony groans, shoving the group through the shuttlebay doors and scrambling back toward the test shuttle. 

When he looks up into the cockpit, Shrav is seated confidently in the pilot’s seat, flicking switches irreverently. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Anthony yells incredulously. He moves toward him, intending to pull him away from the controls, but Shrav reaches out and flicks a switch deliberately, and Anthony jolts as his arms burns against a force field.

“You’ll get us killed, or worse, kicked out of Starfleet!” Anthony cries. He pounds frantically at the force field, but Shrav doesn’t even turn to look at him.

“Lighten up, buttercup. We’ll be back before they even realize we left.“ Shrav continues the takeoff procedures calmly, ignoring Anthony’s thumping and shouting. 

The ground recedes in the viewscreen, and in seconds, they’re soaring through the air above Starfleet HQ. 

When they break Earth orbit, Anthony watches helplessly as Shrav gleefully initiates the transwarp drive. 

The shuttlecraft jolts and the bulkheads creak ominously as their velocity increases. 9, 9.5, 9.7, 9.8, 9.9…

The shaking stops abruptly, and the computer chimes. _Warp ten velocity achieved._

It feels as though the shuttlecraft is hanging in the air, suspended in amber and ignorant of the normal barriers of time and space. Anthony can see _everything_ — his family sitting down to dinner back home in Arizona; Klingons boisterously raising mugs of bloodwine in celebration of the Day of Honor on Kronos; Renora, Jackie and Damien pacing outside STARD’s command center nervously; the command officers frantically searching for their shuttle; his own body pressed against the shuttle’s bulkhead, glaring balefully at Shrav as he clings to his chair in shock.

The sudden flood of sensation is _painfully_ vivid.

From above, he watches as the ops officer exclaims, “Commander, they just disappeared off sensors. They’re gone.”

In the shuttle, Anthony screams, “Shrav, we have to turn back!” 

He doesn’t answer. 

Anthony focuses intently on Shrav, and his perspective drifts to show him. His head droops over the edge of the helm and his fingers are fastened tightly to the underside of the chair. His eyes are an unnatural bright green. 

He forces air out of his lungs, working against the pressure of the ship at transwarp to yell, “Shrav!”

But there is no response. 

The shuttle rocks violently, and both of them are thrown to the floor headfirst. 

Anthony watches helplessly from above as his body loses consciousness. 

#####

He groans, holding his head gingerly and sitting up from where he was knocked to the floor.

The force field is still shimmering in front of him as the shuttle hums along at warp ten. 

The overwhelming sensation of being everywhere makes it difficult to think, so Anthony falls back on his years of Academy training, assessing the situation and addressing it one step at a time. 

Step 1: deactivate the force field. 

Remembering an old trick, Anthony pulls off his combadge and opens its case, setting the energy cell to emit a burst at the same frequency as the defensive shielding. He aims carefully and throws it, huffing in relief when it lands on the forward console with enough force to trigger the switch. 

The force field drops, and grabbing the emergency medical kit, Anthony rushes to Shrav at the helm. The Andorian looks even worse up close: his blue skin is mottled with green and peeling patches, and he doesn’t seem to be breathing. 

Anthony scans him with the medical tricorder and winces at the resulting steady tone. 

With nothing more he can do for Shrav, he focuses on the next task.

Step 2: deactivate the transwarp drive.

He pushes Shrav away from the helm, and hobbles over to the console, sitting in the copilot’s seat to examine the controls. 

The once-familiar symbols appear to dance in front of him, and his head feels as if it is stuffed with cotton. He gulps in deep, exaggerated breaths, but it feels like he can never get enough air. 

Another quick scan with the medical tricorder reveals that his lungs are mutating. It gets more and more difficult to breathe, but he senses what his lungs are pleading for intuitively. 

“Computer, replace the atmosphere in the shuttle with eighty percent nitrogen and twenty percent acidichloride,” he chokes out.

_WARNING: proposed changes will make the atmosphere unbreathable for current shuttle occupants._

“Just do it!” 

His breaths even out and he sighs deeply.

Returning to the task at hand, Anthony says a quick prayer that the transwarp engineers remembered to add labels for the shuttle’s functions _while_ they augmented them. Leaning back over the console, he manages to find the controls to switch off the transwarp drive.

The shuttle streaks into normal space and Anthony gazes happily at the stars. His perception returns to normal and the relief of having his feet planted firmly in one location is palpable. 

It would, however, be a lot more reassuring if he could recognize where he had ended up.

“Computer, extrapolate current location.“

_Scanning… Beta Quadrant. Nearest Federation outpost is 25 light years._

Anthony groans. It will take him a week at high warp to get there. 

He gives himself a minute to curse his bad luck and then urges the shuttle into warp.

May as well get started now. 


	2. interlude

_Stardate 54762.75 (October 6, 2377)_

Dr. Benson sighs and checks her PADD, walking briskly down the hall to the next exam room. 

She raps on the door lightly, then walks in before her brain processes the lack of response. “Anthony?”

When she looks up from the PADD, she finds a large lizard-like creature sprawled across the examination table. 

It really is a new thing every week around here. 

“Computer, what the hell is that?”

“ _Salamandra atra_ — a species of hyper-evolved salamander marked by increased brain capacity and lack of vestigial organs. Last Federation contact by the _USS Voyager_ in 2372.”

“I’m a doctor, not a vet,” she mutters to the salamander, affronted. 

He doesn’t respond. 

She stares the creature down for a moment, then decides she may as well get on with it, grabbing her medical tricorder and passing the probe around the salamander’s slimy body.

The resulting readouts look reasonable and he doesn’t seem to be injured, so she makes a quick note in his file:

_Patient appears to be a healthy 26 year old salamander. Recommend transport to the Farm for care and further study._

She signs the note with a flourish and pats Anthony gently on the head before moving on to her next, hopefully human, patient.


	3. satisfied

_Stardate 57752.6 (October 2, 2380)_

Being a hyper-evolved salamander is not as bad as one might expect; Anthony has a lot more time to daydream and explore his newfound abilities without being interrupted by his duties, and he believes Division 14 will do its best to turn him back as soon as possible — though he is beginning to wonder why it is taking so long to reach the resort.

Passage to the Farm goes smoothly until a bizarre dog and her loud Orion creator board the _Osler_ with an out of phase ensign.

“Hi Anthony!” the Orion woman squeals as the dog sniffs him suspiciously.

She turns away from him slightly to speak to Culver, an ensign that is undergoing equally distributed accelerated and reverse aging. “Did it used to be a man?”

Anthony would be offended, but he understands how strange his new form may seem. And that’s without even taking into account his newfound abilities. 

In the days after his transwarp journey, Anthony had died and reawakened, and was able to breathe oxygen again. The tricorder showed that he had grown an extra heart and gained more amphibious features. 

By the time the test shuttle was boarded by Federation personnel, his thought processes didn’t even feel _human_ anymore. 

He felt special, _more_. 

The new arrivals argue with Culver as he tries to convince them that Starfleet is using the Osler to hide the remnants of its failed, inconvenient science experiments. It’s Culver’s same old song and dance… Anthony loses interest in the conversation after a minute, and decides to try reaching out again. 

_Hello? Can anyone hear me?_

He waits for a minute, listening carefully, but there is no response. 

He’d established early on that none of the other freaks aboard the _Osler_ have telepathic abilities. But still, he wonders if he is alone, if there are others like him out there that he just can’t reach yet. 

Culver’s alternately wisened and pubescent voice breaks his concentration: “This _is_ the Farm!”

Very overdramatic, that one.

#####

After mobbing the purple-haired tattletale and sliding out off the _Osler_ , Anthony gets a much-deserved poolside massage. 

The double suns feel amazing on his skin, especially after so much time inside, and he soaks in the warmth hungrily. As the nurses rub seaweed-scented lotion on his back, he hears a trio of small voices fill his head, echoing in unison: _Who is this? Are you like us?_

Concentrating hard, he shoots back a wry message. _Depends. Did you also steal a shuttle, break the transwarp barrier, and evolve into a salamander?_

One of the voices replies, high-pitched and horrified. _No!_

_But that sounds like that bedtime story dad used to tell us_ , another voice responds. 

_That was a simple parable about the folly of underevolution,_ the last one snaps snootily. _Not a true story!_

_Dad_? Anthony repeats incredulously. _Are you children?_

_Yup!_ the second one squeaks. _I’m Harry._

_I’m Sally_ , the highest voice says. 

_And I am Amanda_ , the snooty one finishes. 

_And where are your parents?_ Anthony wonders. 

_They were taken back to the Alpha Quadrant,_ Sally says. 

Strange. Anthony hadn’t seen or felt any other evolved salamanders at the Farm. 

_Where are you? Can you come to us? We would like to meet you,_ the children shout excitedly. 

Anthony’s derision fizzles through their connection. _Now how would I do that? I’m in the Alpha Quadrant, too, and as a salamander, I can’t exactly nab a shuttle and take off at warp._

_Use your powers!_ the children chorus. 

_Powers?_

_Yeah!_ Sally chirps. _After a few months, we figured out that we could jump to any place if we thought about it long enough._

_We started out using it to spice up our swimming competitions - you know, porting to above the water while moving really fast so we could dive further, that sort of thing,_ Harry rambles. _But then we realized we could port anywhere on the planet! And we’ve done some trips to other systems, too!_

Harry sends some images through their bond, brief glimpses of the kid’s tropical swampland and the other planets they had visited. 

_So you’re just like ‘there’s no place like home’ and you end up there?_ Anthony says. He focuses on the children’s location first, then tries concentrating on STARD really hard, assuming it will be easier to go somewhere he is more familiar with. But, he doesn’t move. _It’s not working for me._

_You probably just need practice,_ Harry encourages. _Why don’t you—_

Amanda cuts in. _Or, we could come to you. Concentrate on where you are and we will attempt to come there._

Anthony recalls everything he knows about the Farm and Endicronimas V and sends them the information as best he can. 

A few moments later, the nurses shriek and almost fall into the pool while trying to get away from the writing mass of three adolescent salamanders which appear beside Anthony’s massage table and wiggle their way up its legs. 

_Hi, Anthony!_ The children clamour. Their voices are much stronger now that they are right next to him, practically touching. They are only a meter long, with small whiskers protruding from their faces, and their energy is boundless. 

The head nurse taps her comm badge exasperatedly, blinking at the congress of salamanders. “Farmhands, please report to Pool Two. We have some more guests.”

#####

_Stardate 58269.9 (April 9, 2081)_

Without a doctor of _Voyager_ ’s EMH’s caliber at their disposal, and finding only the barest medical information included in the transwarp flight reports, it takes the farmhands a few months to understand how to revert hyperevolution. 

Though they try to explain the cause of their transformation to the scientists using their telepathic abilities, there is never any indication that the information is received. And so, Anthony and the salamander sprog are exposed to all sorts of probing, hypothesizing, and surprised murmuring as the farmhands experiment to turn them back into humanoids. 

Or, in the children’s case, _make_ them human. 

During massages in between the experimentation, they’d told him all about their parent’s ill-fated journey to warp ten. Their father, _Voyager_ ’s conn officer, had started exploring transwarp travel with the hope of using infinite velocity to get the crew home instantaneously, but he hadn’t expected the decidedly slimy side-effects. His brief flight had ended in a terrifying transformation and three very unexpected inhuman babies, who were abandoned to the barren marshes of the Delta Quadrant. 

Anthony wouldn’t be able to see Captain Kathryn Janeway, pioneer of the Delta Quadrant, the same way again.

Despite sometimes feeling like a lab experiment that had gone wrong, his time on Endicronimas V hadn’t been all bad. He’d also gallivanted across the universe as Harry and Sally taught him to use his powers of infinite velocity. Amanda, having acclimated to the idea that the Federation and its less evolved humanoid species were indeed real remarkably fast, had dismissed the endeavor as foolish, given that they would soon be losing their abilities. Regardless, Anthony had taken to the lessons like, well, a salamander to water, and he’d seen worlds he couldn’t have even dreamed of: the great black deserts of Tajave, where they had sunned on the dunes to their heart’s content; the bright blue lava of the Donesian volcanoes, where they’d observed the tradition of the Ijen firekeepers; the red, green, and brown striped icebergs of Mirren, which housed the Miré, a collective of penguin-like aliens who worshipped the pillars of light which appeared at a sacred time each month; the beautiful, bioluminescent beaches of Kor’na, where they’d frolicked in the water for hours at night. 

It was true that not all places had been hospitable to salamanders — take, for example, the stone mountain ranges of Grefsburg, where tiny, angry forestfolk had chased them away, believing them to be unnatural hellbeasts trapped between worlds. They couldn’t exactly convince them otherwise, since the telepathic connection didn’t seem to extend to other beings. But, all the same, Anthony had been intrigued after experiencing infinite diversity in infinite combinations for himself.

Blinking his eyes at the completed anti-proton treatment chamber, Anthony knows he has an important decision to make. 

An experienced porter, he is loath to give up the pure freedom of appearing anywhere he wants, or the transcendent efficiency of mind to mind communication with his hyperevolved brethren. 

But, he doesn’t want to be alone, and Sally, Harry and Amanda had already made their choice: they want to have a chance to find their parents, to see the Alpha Quadrant, and to communicate with other cultures. Giving up their abilities is a small price to pay to be able to walk on land among other like-minded beings.

Anthony slithers around the chamber indecisively, knowing that they are already curled up inside. 

On the other hand, exploring strange new worlds is exactly why he had joined Starfleet. Did it really matter whether he did that by porting around as a more highly evolved being, or warping around in a starship as an exhausted and powerless ensign? If he goes back, there’s a high likelihood he’ll never see another world again anyway, after he dishonored his position by allowing Shrav and the others into the restricted shuttlebay. 

Amanda breaks into his thoughts impatiently. _Are you coming or not?_

_Sorry._ He tosses back, his inner voice radiating fear and confusion. _I just don’t know what I should do._

Harry chimes in thoughtfully. _Our mother had a saying: fear exists for one purpose — to be conquered. You can’t just slither away from your responsibilities because you made_ one _mistake, Anthony._

The impact of the words stops Anthony in his slimy tracks. 

He dips his head in shame. Harry is right; he can’t use his condition as an excuse for his actions. He has to face the music.

Sucking in a final raspy breath, he joins them.

#####

_Stardate 58963.9 (December 18, 2381)_

Anthony examines his dress uniform in his full length mirror, thrilled to be a normal Starfleet test pilot again, albeit one who’s invited to the coveted Pathfinder’s Ball.

There’d been an investigation into the _Earhart_ ’s crash, of course, where Anthony had painstakingly described the series of unfortunate events that had led to his transformation before the STARD review board. While he was formally reprimanded for allowing non-essential personnel into the shuttlebay, they’d decided against barring him from the test piloting program altogether. 

Apparently, being a salamander for nearly four years was punishment enough in their eyes.

Instead, he’d been returned to his original position at STARD, though incredibly, due to his controlled response under pressure during disastrous shuttle flight, he was quickly promoted to doing test flights of the Class-F engines. 

A few months after his return, the Pathfinder invitation had pinged his comm terminal, courtesy of one Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris:

_Any transwarp traveller is a friend in my book._

He affixes his pip carefully, then walks to the transporter station around the corner from his apartment, waiting impatiently on the pad for more guests to arrive. Had he still been able to port, he could have been there by now, he grumbles inwardly.

After another few minutes, Everyone has arrived, and the blue beam catches them all, rematerializing them among the grand archway of the Federation Assembly in Paris. 

The ballroom is lavishly decorated for the holiday season, and _Voyager_ ’s fourth return anniversary, with holobanners, an enormous cake, and even mistletoe. Picking his way through the crowd of crewmembers, brass, and dignitaries, he spies Harry, Sally, and Amanda sitting off to one side.

As soon as he approaches their table, Sally leaps on him. “Anthony!” she shrieks directly in his ear, hugging him exuberantly. 

He pats her back awkwardly and waves hello to her siblings. The three of them looked almost like teenage humans from afar, but up close, he can see the dark green and brown scale-like markings around their temples, and the more pronounced cartilage of their noses. 

Harry and Amanda opted for the Starfleet Preparatory Academy’s cadet dress uniforms, but Sally is wearing a glossy periwinkle sleeveless dress, and he can see the markings continue along her arms when she finally releases him from the tight hug.

They’re talking about the adjustment to their Earth-bound lives when Tom Paris bustles up, a mischievous grin on his face. 

“Welcome to the party, munchkins.” He gives Harry and Anthony a hearty slap on the back. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Paris beckens to the girls cheerfully and grabs Harry’s arm, leading all four of them toward a group of ‘fleeters near the center of the room. Anthony and Sally exchange startled glances, trailing behind Amanda, who has the look of the cat that got the cream.

“B’Elanna!” Paris yells. 

His wife turns around exasperatedly, and Anthony can finally see who she’s talking to — _Voyager_ ’s infamous command team, Admiral Kathryn Janeway and Captain Chakotay. 

Paris stops in front of them and gestures dramatically to the three children. “B’Elanna, I’d like you to meet your step-kids, Harry, Sally, and Amanda.” 

She smiles grimly at them, the scrunched-up ridges on her forehead conveying her annoyance with her husband’s strange little interruption.

But, her reaction goes over her husband’s head, as he’s already turned back around to face the herd of former-salamanders. “Kids, meet your mother.” 

He waves excitedly to the Admiral, who is maintaining an incredible poker face.

Beside her, the Captain yelps in shock. “Are you serious?” 

“What, you thought they’d stay trapped on that planet forever? Our kids are smarter than that,” Paris pronounces proudly, winking at Janeway. 

“Right.” Chakotay says, wincing. He smiles at the formerly-amphibious children ruefully, a little green around the gills at the reminder of the decision to leave them in their marshy habitat. 

Janeway notices her fiancé's discomfort and, shifting the focus away from him, arches an eyebrow at Anthony. “I thought there were only three,” she says, as though that’s a reasonable amount of hyperevolved alien babies to have with your helmsman. 

“Oh, I’m not one of—” He manages to stop before he says _yours_. “Ensign Anthony Martinez, sir. I was involved in a similar… accident.” 

She gives him an appraising look. “I see. Well, at ease, ensign, before you sprain something.”

As Janeway takes a contemplative sip of her Andorian sunrise, Anthony tries to rearrange himself to look less awkward among the heroic Delta Quadrant explorers, but finds it an impossible task. 

“And, ma’am is acceptable in a crunch, but I prefer Admiral.”

Paris snorts into his champagne, elbowing the lieutenant next to him unsubtly. The man’s eyes widen and he unconsciously rubs a thumb over the pips proudly displayed on his gold uniform.

He scrutinizes the three salamander kids for a moment, then comments dryly, “Perhaps a toast is in order.” At the sound of his voice, the memories the children had shared slot into place. This is former Ensign Kim, Harry’s namesake. 

Anthony expects the lieutenant was only being cheeky, but Paris takes the suggestion seriously nonetheless. He waves a waiter over and presses glasses into everyone’s hands — kava juice for the kids, fresh flutes of champagne for the others. 

Janeway trades her glass in last, and Paris can’t resist a final retort. “Care to say something, as the matriarch of this family?”

“No, I think you should do the honors, Tom.”

“Almost ten years ago, we made history with the first successful transwarp flight. At the time, the experience left me overwhelmed and confused.” 

He pauses, looking into the eyes of each and every person in their little huddle. 

“Today, I stand before you, a changed man.”

Lieutenant Kim huffs out a laugh behind him. 

“That trip was the first stop on a journey that has allowed me to break the most important barriers.” 

He raises his glass. “So… to the journey!”

B’Elanna rolls her eyes fondly, but taps her glass against her husband's anyway. “To the journey.”

Harry, Sally, Amanda, and the _Voyager_ crew start to clink glasses, and Anthany sees his chance to slip away. 

But before he can get far, Paris stops him with an arm around his shoulder. “Sorry, son, you’re part of this, too.”

Paris taps his glass gently and whispers to him conspiratorially, “Once you go flat, you never fully go back.”

Anthony almost spits out the fizzing drink. “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”

Harry wanders over to join them, and Anthony looks around for his other littermates. He finds Sally teasing Amanda with reminders of their first months as tadpoles as she continues to speak calmly to the Admiral. To his right, Harry listens, enraptured, to the Commander’s latest unfinished holonovel inspiration.

With a satisfied smile, Anthony drains the final sip of champagne, feeling grateful, for the first time since the crash, that somehow his course was plotted to this moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was so fun to write, I might have to do more crackish fic! 
> 
> Some fun salamander facts I learned while researching for this fic:  
> 🦎 A group of salamanders is called a herd or congress.  
> 🦎 Salamander babies start out fully aquatic, and as they mature, they lose their gills, grow legs, and develop internal lungs and eyelids that can close.  
> 🦎 Some salamanders can breathe through their skin.  
> 🦎 Salamanders are able to regenerate lost limbs.


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